Innovating urban governance

Discovery Project to investigate new urban governance trends as challenges spur change

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As cities face more complex challenges – from COVID-19 to climate change, from housing affordability to technological transformation —the expectations on urban governance have steadily increased. Plenty of evidence suggests that cities are responding with governance innovations that draw on new ideas, practices and collaborators that will steer urban development and everyday life in new directions

Yet, little is known about the governance capacities produced by these new ways of governing – their effectiveness, their inclusiveness or their legitimacy.

With the support of a $320,556 grant via the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Grant scheme, Senior Professor of Human Geography Pauline McGuirk is working with a team of researchers from the University of Sydney and the University of Auckland in New Zealand to investigate these new urban governance trends and their ultimate benefit to future cities

“Cities are central to potential solutions to the many challenges that people face worldwide,” Professor McGuirk, one of three Chief Investigators on the three-year project, explained.

“New demands and expectations on city governments have triggered innovations in urban governance worldwide, particularly as cities seek to address complex urban challenges such as climate change, inequality and population growth.”

“This project poses much needed critical questions of these innovations in urban governance: who do they involve; how do they work; how do they intersect with longstanding practices of governing the city; what are the limitations; what are the advantages.”

The study, titled Innovating urban governance: Practices for enhanced futures, will focus on urban governance innovations in Australia and analyse how the government, the private sector, non-government organisations and citizens are collaborating to manage and find solutions to common problems. Professor McGuirk will work on the project alongside CIs Professor Robyn Dowling and Dr Sophia Maalsen from the University of Sydney and Dr Tom Baker, a Partner Investigator, from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

“New roles for the government, business, civic and university sectors are emerging, as are innovations in financing and collaborative partnerships.”

As examples, Professor McGuirk points to practices such as co-design, fast prototyping, urban challenges, i-labs, crowdsourcing and urban experimentation as key ways in which cities are sourcing ideas to guide urban policy and to design and deliver urban services.

The Discovery Project has three main objectives: To develop a broad, systematic understanding of how new ecosystems of urban governance innovation are unfolding; to draw Australian and international knowledge of urban governance innovations together to refine understandings of how context shapes their form, limits and potential; and to generate new insights to enhance Australian cities’ capacities for effective, inclusive and legitimate urban governance.

“This new knowledge will benefit Australian cities as a support framework to help them recalibrate governance capacities and by informing national policies to help them fulfil their roles,” Professor McGuirk said.